Chicago Bears fans have sworn up and down that Caleb Williams is already one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. They’d watched every game last season. They saw the elite playmaking ability. The maturation as a leader and knack for making things happen when they absolutely had to. The Bears don’t win the division or a playoff game without his exploits last season, which is not something anybody has said about a quarterback for this team in a long time. Unfortunately, plenty of fans and national media outlets haven’t been willing to give Williams the credit he deserves.
That finally changed. Jeremy Fowler of ESPN has been releasing his annual series of top 10 rankings for every position group, voted on by executives, coaches, and scouts. The Bears are well-represented this year with members of the top 10 in tight ends, guards, and offensive tackles. However, the big surprise for many is Williams cracking the list at quarterback. He claimed the final spot at #10, beating out serious contenders like Jordan Love, Baker Mayfield, and Super Bowl-winner Sam Darnold. The primary reason is easily the best part.
10. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears
Here’s where it gets interesting. Four quarterbacks — Williams, Seattle’s Sam Darnold, Green Bay’s Jordan Love and Washington’s Jayden Daniels — were very close in voting for the 10th spot. So we took it to tiebreakers, gathering input from several general managers and executives. Why did Williams barely win out for the final spot on the list? He’s the hardest of the four for teams to prepare for and defend.
“He’s the most dynamic of the group,” one GM said. “He’s got the arm talent and overall athleticism suited for today’s game.”
His 11 touchdowns thrown at least 20 yards downfield were two more than any other quarterback last season. He reduced his sack total from 68 to 24 year-over-year, too. And Williams’ 13 interceptions on 1,130 career passing attempts are an excellent clip. His playmaking is sustainable. Plus, Williams’ six fourth-quarter comebacks in 2025 led the league.
“He’s a closer,” an NFL personnel evaluator said. “End of games, he has shown that.”
His inconsistencies did give some voters pause. His 20.2% off-target rate was 37th out of 38 quarterbacks in 2025, though his ability to keep plays alive and throw the ball away contributes to this.
“Wildly erratic,” a veteran NFL defensive coach said. “Doesn’t always take the layups and still needs to mature into the position. [He] has some of those ‘what is he doing?’ plays. But he also makes plays only he and Mahomes can make. [He] can throw from any angle, deceptively fast when forced to scramble and he’s got the ‘it’ factor in crunch time.”
Caleb Williams left no doubt about his clutch factor.
Leading seven 4th quarter comebacks in a single season is impossible to dispute. Granted, a couple of them were directly spearheaded by the quarterback, but the majority of them were. What made it even crazier was that three of those comebacks saw the Bears trailing by 10 or more points with five minutes left. The Bears still trailed with two minutes remaining in all seven of those games. This was never a case of them trailing at the start of the 4th quarter and quickly regaining the lead with plenty of time left.
In hindsight, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Caleb Williams showed death-defying traits as far back as high school. He won a state championship on a Hail Mary. His first game in college saw him come off the bench to erase a 21-point lead, carrying Oklahoma to its biggest-ever comeback over Texas. The signs had always been there that the quarterback had a certain flair for the dramatic. Last season was merely confirmation that he is indeed that dude. Much to the dismay of Green Bay Packers fans.
🔥 Subscribe to the Untold Chicago YouTube channel to hear Chicago legends tell stories you’ve never seen in headlines — real moments, real experiences, straight from the athletes themselves.
Love has not demonstrated anything close to that.
Mind you, he received plenty of praise in his honorable mention. Experts view the Packers’ quarterback as a smart and capable starter who’s gotten better every year. However, they stopped short of calling him a true difference-maker. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Love, for all his statistical output, is 1-3 in the playoffs. That includes a loss to Williams in a head-to-head showdown last season. If that weren’t enough, he seems to play his worst football in the 4th quarter. Since becoming a starter in 2023, he’s completing 58% of his passes with 22 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in the final period.
This is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling for Green Bay. They subsisted on elite, clutch quarterback play for 30 years between Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. They’ve insisted up and down that Love is in that same tier. He’s simply disrespected. Yet the numbers don’t lie. When the team has asked him to make something happen in big games, he has come up small too often. They talk about his four touchdowns in the playoff game against Chicago. They fail to mention that he only produced six points in the second half.
Williams had 25 in the 4th quarter alone.
